We had been warned about the high cost, lack of berths and indifference to English yachties on the Costa del Sol, so we had planned to zip through this part of the coast without too many stops.
7th May 2007. Our first scheduled stop was at Estepona, which we thought would be a reasonably priced marina, as we knew several boats that had wintered or stopped overnight there. We tied up alongside the waiting pontoon, which claimed to have 24 hour staffing. It was about 7pm and there was no-one to be seen. We wandered around the pontoons – no-one to be found, so we cooked our dinner and planned to spend the night on the waiting pontoon and be gone early in the morning. At 10.30pm the marinero knocked on the side and asked us to fill in his papers and check in. When we found out that it would be €50 for the night we decided to move on briskly and do an overnight passage instead. The mariner was kind enough to let us eat our dinner before we left and turn a blind eye to our short stay on the waiting pontoon. A lunch stop here is €25 so we were pleased with his generosity!
We had an uneventful motor along the coast, with virtually no fishing boats, no ships to be seen and a tranquil flat sea. The peace was briefly broken at about 3 am, by the deep sound of a high-speed boat that showed on radar at 1 mile but had no lights. It disappeared quickly into the night and off radar. Drug boat, we both agreed and Stu went back to sleep and I continued my watch. The lights of Marbella and Malaga winked past in an unbroken line along the coast but by morning we were sailing past the fairly undeveloped coastline of Almeria, still showing the benefit of starvation of development by Franco in the 60s, but now starting to catch up with its neighbouring costas, and the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains in the background. We studied the pilot book, and found a reasonably sheltered anchorage at La Herradura. This was close to Almenucar where Laurie Lee witnessed the outbreak of the Spanish Civil war in 1936. We had a restful couple of nights at anchor and our first swim of the season. The water was already warmer than the UK at its best!
Almerimar : 10-23 May
We next found ourselves at Almerimar marina. We just popped in to find out the costs, preparing ourselves for a quick departure based on the Estepona experience. We were amazed to find it was €9 per night (water and power extra), so we booked in for a couple of nights. This marina has 1000 berths in 3 large basins, surrounded by shops, apartments, beaches, restaurants. It is a boat city, but completely lacks character and atmosphere. We were pleased to be able to get wifi on board the boat, and that there was a huge well-stocked Mercadona supermarket on site. There is also a VHF net broadcast every morning, similar to that of Lagos, so you could keep up to date with events, buy sell and swap gear, and find out a daily weather report. This turned out to be immensely valuable as Cabo de Gata headland is the local nasty to be avoided in bad weather and almost impossible to round in a north easterly due to the sea-state and currents. Almerimar had us hostage for 14 nights in the end, as we waited for the right weather slot to move up the south east coast safely.
A few Lagos boats arrived – Dawn Chaser, Roamer, Birvidik, and we made some new acquaintances – Pam and Dave on ‘Will You’ and Pete and Lyn on “Huit Huit” who were full of useful information. Pete and Lyn had cruised the Spanish coast and the Balearics several times so we had a pilot book party and made notes in our new pilot book from their suggestions as to where to head for, good anchoring spots and where to pick up water supplies.
A German live-aboard was selling LED lights that he makes up himself to your specification – we had been searching for the right ones for sometime, so we availed ourselves of his services. LED lights use very little power, so they are great as anchor lights, and saloon lights, reading lights etc. If you are anchored and need to watch your power consumption vs. battery charging ability, LED lights are invaluable. All that we needed now was the right light shades …..
David, the weather man, introduced us to a couple of really useful weather sites:
www.inm.es the Spanish met office website and www.meteosim.com . By studying the weather buoy data we could check whether the sea-state was suitable for departure, avoiding the hassle of leaving, having a nasty day on the water, only to have to return to Almerimar.
We got a lot of jobs done on the boat, varnishing the woodwork and protecting the sails and ropes from chafe – it was a useful and cheap stopover, but finally a weather window developed and we were off like a shot.
We rounded Cabo de Gata in a still lumpy and rolly sea and even managed to sail in light winds. We had decided to head straight out to the Balearic Islands overnight as we were having such a nice sail in 8 knots of wind, with twin head sails poled out and no main sail. At about 2pm Stuart looked behind us and saw the water getting choppier, so we decided to drop the big lightweight hank-on genoa in case the wind speed was on the increase. At this point the Navtex spewed out a gale warning for all areas of the western Mediterranean.
Luckily we got the lightweight genoa packed away and down inside in good time, but no sooner had we done that, we had to wind away the roller-furling genoa bit by bit. The wind swung around to the NW 120 degree swing, and increased to35 and peaked at 45 knots!!! We were running around closing hatches, and getting the spray hood up as we were being soaked by the spray of the rapidly building sea. This transformation from light wind ghosting to full stormy seas took about 45 minutes, a Mediterranean speciality. We decided to head into the lee of the mainland, as although we were in no danger, we didn’t know how long these conditions might last. We motored up into the lee of the headland and headed straight into a new cheap marina at Santa Pola, which had been recommended to us by ‘Will You’. We were very thankful that we had not been too far out to sea when this weather came through – it was a salutary lesson as to how quickly the Med weather can change. With no tides to overcome, the sea state changes and builds as rapidly as the wind speed increases, and then only dies away slowly after the wind has stopped.
Santa Pola marina has only just opened and is almost empty. It was €11 a night, the pontoons very solid and the bathrooms luxurious. We were happy to tie up for a few days – first job being to wash the salt crystals off the outside of the boat. Santa Pola is a nice town, not touristy, and has Chinese shop warehouses where you can buy almost anything. Every town in Spain and Portugal has a Chinese shop – however small the village –well stocked with all sorts of tat, amongst which you can usually find something useful – a tool, a plastic tray for the fridge, a kitchen utensil. In Santa Pola we found 2B pencils for chart work at 35cents each, and some teak pencil holders for 65 cents, which Stuart is making into LED light shades! Bargains galore!
Leaving the marina, and heading out from the mainland we had a rough and windy start to the 100 mile passage to the Balearics, thinking – here we go again! – But thankfully the wind moderated after a couple of hours and we motor-sailed overnight. Again it was a very uneventful passage, with just a few ships and fishing boats sighted. We take it in turns to be on watch for 2-4 hours at a time, for short trips overnight this is no problem, as you can catch up on sleep once you arrive.
It took 24 days from Ceuta to reach the Balearic Islands. We were lucky to have anchored in settled weather when possible, and to find a couple of cheap marinas. The marina charges were due to increase to summer rates within a few days of our departure from each place, so we had got in just in time. Will we be so lucky in the Balearics, given all the tales of woe that we have heard from ‘helpful’ souls who wish to fill our heads with all sorts of information?
7th May 2007. Our first scheduled stop was at Estepona, which we thought would be a reasonably priced marina, as we knew several boats that had wintered or stopped overnight there. We tied up alongside the waiting pontoon, which claimed to have 24 hour staffing. It was about 7pm and there was no-one to be seen. We wandered around the pontoons – no-one to be found, so we cooked our dinner and planned to spend the night on the waiting pontoon and be gone early in the morning. At 10.30pm the marinero knocked on the side and asked us to fill in his papers and check in. When we found out that it would be €50 for the night we decided to move on briskly and do an overnight passage instead. The mariner was kind enough to let us eat our dinner before we left and turn a blind eye to our short stay on the waiting pontoon. A lunch stop here is €25 so we were pleased with his generosity!
We had an uneventful motor along the coast, with virtually no fishing boats, no ships to be seen and a tranquil flat sea. The peace was briefly broken at about 3 am, by the deep sound of a high-speed boat that showed on radar at 1 mile but had no lights. It disappeared quickly into the night and off radar. Drug boat, we both agreed and Stu went back to sleep and I continued my watch. The lights of Marbella and Malaga winked past in an unbroken line along the coast but by morning we were sailing past the fairly undeveloped coastline of Almeria, still showing the benefit of starvation of development by Franco in the 60s, but now starting to catch up with its neighbouring costas, and the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains in the background. We studied the pilot book, and found a reasonably sheltered anchorage at La Herradura. This was close to Almenucar where Laurie Lee witnessed the outbreak of the Spanish Civil war in 1936. We had a restful couple of nights at anchor and our first swim of the season. The water was already warmer than the UK at its best!
 |
| The Sierra Nevada and Costa de Almerimar |
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| Our own anchorage at La Herradura in fine settled weather |
We next found ourselves at Almerimar marina. We just popped in to find out the costs, preparing ourselves for a quick departure based on the Estepona experience. We were amazed to find it was €9 per night (water and power extra), so we booked in for a couple of nights. This marina has 1000 berths in 3 large basins, surrounded by shops, apartments, beaches, restaurants. It is a boat city, but completely lacks character and atmosphere. We were pleased to be able to get wifi on board the boat, and that there was a huge well-stocked Mercadona supermarket on site. There is also a VHF net broadcast every morning, similar to that of Lagos, so you could keep up to date with events, buy sell and swap gear, and find out a daily weather report. This turned out to be immensely valuable as Cabo de Gata headland is the local nasty to be avoided in bad weather and almost impossible to round in a north easterly due to the sea-state and currents. Almerimar had us hostage for 14 nights in the end, as we waited for the right weather slot to move up the south east coast safely.
A few Lagos boats arrived – Dawn Chaser, Roamer, Birvidik, and we made some new acquaintances – Pam and Dave on ‘Will You’ and Pete and Lyn on “Huit Huit” who were full of useful information. Pete and Lyn had cruised the Spanish coast and the Balearics several times so we had a pilot book party and made notes in our new pilot book from their suggestions as to where to head for, good anchoring spots and where to pick up water supplies.
A German live-aboard was selling LED lights that he makes up himself to your specification – we had been searching for the right ones for sometime, so we availed ourselves of his services. LED lights use very little power, so they are great as anchor lights, and saloon lights, reading lights etc. If you are anchored and need to watch your power consumption vs. battery charging ability, LED lights are invaluable. All that we needed now was the right light shades …..
David, the weather man, introduced us to a couple of really useful weather sites:
www.inm.es the Spanish met office website and www.meteosim.com . By studying the weather buoy data we could check whether the sea-state was suitable for departure, avoiding the hassle of leaving, having a nasty day on the water, only to have to return to Almerimar.
We got a lot of jobs done on the boat, varnishing the woodwork and protecting the sails and ropes from chafe – it was a useful and cheap stopover, but finally a weather window developed and we were off like a shot.
We rounded Cabo de Gata in a still lumpy and rolly sea and even managed to sail in light winds. We had decided to head straight out to the Balearic Islands overnight as we were having such a nice sail in 8 knots of wind, with twin head sails poled out and no main sail. At about 2pm Stuart looked behind us and saw the water getting choppier, so we decided to drop the big lightweight hank-on genoa in case the wind speed was on the increase. At this point the Navtex spewed out a gale warning for all areas of the western Mediterranean.
Luckily we got the lightweight genoa packed away and down inside in good time, but no sooner had we done that, we had to wind away the roller-furling genoa bit by bit. The wind swung around to the NW 120 degree swing, and increased to35 and peaked at 45 knots!!! We were running around closing hatches, and getting the spray hood up as we were being soaked by the spray of the rapidly building sea. This transformation from light wind ghosting to full stormy seas took about 45 minutes, a Mediterranean speciality. We decided to head into the lee of the mainland, as although we were in no danger, we didn’t know how long these conditions might last. We motored up into the lee of the headland and headed straight into a new cheap marina at Santa Pola, which had been recommended to us by ‘Will You’. We were very thankful that we had not been too far out to sea when this weather came through – it was a salutary lesson as to how quickly the Med weather can change. With no tides to overcome, the sea state changes and builds as rapidly as the wind speed increases, and then only dies away slowly after the wind has stopped.
Santa Pola marina has only just opened and is almost empty. It was €11 a night, the pontoons very solid and the bathrooms luxurious. We were happy to tie up for a few days – first job being to wash the salt crystals off the outside of the boat. Santa Pola is a nice town, not touristy, and has Chinese shop warehouses where you can buy almost anything. Every town in Spain and Portugal has a Chinese shop – however small the village –well stocked with all sorts of tat, amongst which you can usually find something useful – a tool, a plastic tray for the fridge, a kitchen utensil. In Santa Pola we found 2B pencils for chart work at 35cents each, and some teak pencil holders for 65 cents, which Stuart is making into LED light shades! Bargains galore!
Leaving the marina, and heading out from the mainland we had a rough and windy start to the 100 mile passage to the Balearics, thinking – here we go again! – But thankfully the wind moderated after a couple of hours and we motor-sailed overnight. Again it was a very uneventful passage, with just a few ships and fishing boats sighted. We take it in turns to be on watch for 2-4 hours at a time, for short trips overnight this is no problem, as you can catch up on sleep once you arrive.
It took 24 days from Ceuta to reach the Balearic Islands. We were lucky to have anchored in settled weather when possible, and to find a couple of cheap marinas. The marina charges were due to increase to summer rates within a few days of our departure from each place, so we had got in just in time. Will we be so lucky in the Balearics, given all the tales of woe that we have heard from ‘helpful’ souls who wish to fill our heads with all sorts of information?
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